news.ycombinator.com Archives - 20 December 2012, Thursday

Seems like Bitcoin is being rapidly adopted as a viable currency choice. For a while there I wasn't convinced Bitcoin was going to survive the issues it faced, especially all of the controversy surrounding fraudulent Bitcoin exchanges and wallet services that disappear with users Bitc...

I'm strongly surprised that is not widely used for money laundering yet.It seems perfect for the purpose of storing value and moving it semi-anonymously. Especially since you can just buy a bunch of very generic hardware with stolen money and mine pure money. I'm hoping underground wi...

As I stated in an earlier comment, I would likely have a different experience with Django now. Django was the first framework I attempted to learn, so I'll wholeheartedly admit that some of that was inexperience with web applications (started programming with non-web VB and Java).I co...

I disagree. inflation is _a_ motivator for exchanging currency for other assets/services. But i don't think it is a primary motivator. Inflation/deflation is only a strong motivator in abnormal circumstances. With 2-3% inflation my primary motivation for buying things is way more abou...

Bitcoin works by having "blocks" of data, containing transaction history (every Bitcoin transfer someone has made - it is only actually made when incorporated into a block), "mined" by a network. These blocks are mined by incrementing a value in the block of data computing a hash of i...

Bitcoin is helping shape the future of payments - and as the first YC-backed bitcoin company, we're right in the thick of it. We're off to a great start - 15% growth per week in transaction volume, closed a deal with a major U.S. bank, and raised a $600k seed round. We're now looking ...

This article is just, plain, silly. The author criticizes Balanced because they don't support Bitcoin? Yea, so, here's the deal -- startups need to make money, not chase down ideological, academic experiments like Bitcoin.As a customer, I can attest that Balanced provides a really, re...

500friends is looking to hire the three best Ruby on Rails hackers on HN.Yes, we realize that really badass Rails hackers are in high demand. So why should you join us over that sexy social - local - mobile - sharing start-up? The usual stuff: Fast paced environment with no bureaucrac...

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This is compelling anecdotal evidence that Bitcoin use may be expanding from a tiny number of market innovators to a still-small but considerably larger number of early adopters. So far, Bitcoin is following the usual path to wider adoption of all innovative products.[1] I continue to...

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My disclaimer (and bias) is I'm a hardcore linux dev and never touch windows unless its forced upon me. So with that said, here's my thoughts."Myth 1: It's Easier to Bootstrap a Project In Rails" Maybe, but still I doubt its cross platform (without headaches) - can you bootstrap MVC o...

Yes, this is sometimes the case. I've done some thinking on this in this older post: http://justinjackson.ca/this-tree-guy-has-good-business-advi... Sometimes, moving to a new market can help. However, there's still the possibility that there is no profitable market for your product. ...

It's unfortunate that shipping to european countries is on average about 4x the cost of the product. For example: a kensington-like cable is 25$ but shipping is $110. Similarly, for a 200$ screen, shipping is $300.So while it's nice that international shipping is available, it's not v...

Hi, a couple of suggestions here: 1. Landing page. It is not very clear for me what is the basic "free" course. Will I be able to go all the way up to building my app with the free one? If you write it as Course 1: RoR Basics, you lead me to think you will only tell me how to define v...

It is comments like this which make me dislike reading the comments of any article with "php" in the title. Not only is it extremely biased, it is presented without any facts or logic to back it up and should be taken as it is given, an opinion.PHP is an extremely powerful language fo...

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A while ago I wrote that perhaps the greatest contribution the Bitcoin experiment will make to humankind is to teach you and me and our neighbors more about the realities of economics. And later I added that the Bitcoin experiment will also contribute to greater understanding of attac...

Adi Shamir claims to have understanding of Bitcoin network, yet downloads and parses HTML files instead of a raw structured and ready to use blockchain.Jeff Garzik makes two very important comments. First, that the blockchain is not a website and is very easy to tinker with as it is. ...

There is no such thing as "intrinsic value". All value is perception and subjective. Complicated arguments may enhance perceived value in others but keep in mind the subjective nature.Once confidence collapses, "intrinsic value" flees out the door.

The trust issue he encountered he mis-attributed to bitcoin when in fact the issue was with paypal and credit cards. Bitcoin is like cash. There's no "reversal" of charges. Once something has been paid for, it's public record and there's no one-sided taking it back. This is a good thi...

Estimated around the end of this year, the amount of Bitcoins mined per day will be halved according to the schedule. If I understand correctly, this means that the cost to mine one BTC will double, roughly, if the mining capacity stays the same.On top of that, some companies are, or ...

>No production curve can ever be "fair". If you imagine that one day every living person has equal amount of bitcoins, they will be very quickly redistributed from those who doesn't care to those who do for a relatively small price. And then, when the network becomes more stable and u...

All the incidents to date except the first Bitcoinica heist were due to bad security practices one way or another. Even that one could be considered bad security practices by trusting that Linode was secure.That said, I expect we will see some really hardcore Bitcoin security incident...

There is no SOL in most nations, as virtual goods are generally not considered property. Bitcoin is regarded as a virtual good in the U.S., so it is not possible to "steal" a bitcoin. (Note: this is a distinct concept from intellectual property -- do not confuse the issues.)In China, ...

It's not really looking like that's an option too many folks care about anyway, given the survey results so far.As for the concerns: 1) The original audio did mention that there would be difficulties on the hardware side of that fence - leasing a car may have been a poor example, but ...